Interprofessional education in geriatric medicine: towards best practice. A controlled before-after study of medical and nursing student attitudes

Objectives To investigate nursing and medical students’ readiness for interprofessional learning before and after implementing geriatric Interprofessional education (IPE), based on interactive case scenarios Problem Based Learning (PBL). To determine optimal number of geriatric IPE sessions, the size and the ratio of participants in the learner groups, the outcomes related to the Kirkpatrick four-level typology of learning evaluation, students’ concerns about joint learning, perception of roles of the “other” profession and students choice of topic.

The strength:

• This is a novel evidence regarding good practice for geriatric undergraduate Interprofessional education derived from a large unselected (inclusive) cohort of medical and nursing students

• A controlled before-after study, with students randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups

The limitations:

• The overall number of nursing students was smaller, so the control group consisted of only medical students

• The nursing students had more clinical experience than the medical students at the time of the geriatric IPE

• Not all students returned the feedback forms, complaining that completing both questionnaires was time-consuming